alive with the deal now made. that is our broadcast for this wednesday night, with our thanks for being with us, on behalf of all my colleagues at the networks of nbc news, goodnight. >> reporter: tonight on all in. >> take back your party from this cult. >> reporter: the running man slows down but stops short of explaining his party -- insurrection. >> they can run, but they cannot hide from what happened on january 6th, to call that legitimate political discourse. >> reporter: tonight, january six as a republican wedge issue. plus, rudy giuliani's reporting attempt to commandeer voting machines. the anti vaxxer who just took a capital riot plea deal, and subpoena -- dave for the the offensive coordinator of the -- then

congresswoman katie porter on the announcement of a stock trading ban from members of congress, and a surprising rescue of the u.s. postal service after decades of republican attempts to kill it. >> the post office is losing billions of dollars, and the taxpayers are paying for that money. >> reporter: all in starts right now. >> good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes. today, house republican leader kevin mccarthy at least stopped running. we played this clip of him yesterday, i've been chuckling about it for a day. so terrified of the prospect of having to say whether he thought the insurrection was good, or bad, that he literally ran away from a reporter. this morning, probably after consulting with his team about how bad that looked, he stopped to answer questions about the recent censure. representatives liz cheney, and adam kinzinger, and the rnc's description of january 6th as, quote, legitimate political discourse.

>> [inaudible]. >> i think anybody, we all know this, who entered this building knows that right is not legitimate. i don't think that is what the rnc was talking about. >> the rnc drafted their own resolution, they made those distinctions, they didn't distinguish between violent and nonviolent. so at one point, the resolution apparently did. get this, new reporting from the new york times reveals that an early draft of the rnc's resolution condemns cheney and kinzinger for participating in the democrat led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in nonviolent and legal political discourse, making that distinction clear. but nonviolent and legal was ultimately taken out and replaced with legitimate. so, kevin mccarthy is trying to straddle the unstraddle-able, here. he condemns that they

were -- -- but says he does not think that is what the rnc really meant. he does not defend the insurrection, but he doesn't quite condemn it, either. earlier today, house speaker nancy pelosi slammed him for trying to have it both ways, and running away instead of taking a stand. nope? you will have to trust me on that. she was pretty unequivocal about it. several other republicans are trying to do the same dance. yesterday, we highlighted how republican governor ron desantis was asked to take a side in the fight between donald trump and mike pence after pence finally declared that trump was wrong, and he did not have the right to overturn the election. and like mccarthy yesterday, ron desantis just refused to answer. >> i am not -- i've, i've had a great relationship -- was

governor for two years with the trump administration. >> who is right, who is not? who is to say. saw the same kind of cowardly attempt to avoid the question from wyoming senator cynthia lummis when she was asked about the republican national committee resolution centering representatives kinzinger and cheney. she called that, quote, an interesting approach, that was novel and unique. she went out of her way to say that it was not condemning, or endorsing, just noting that it was novel. again, like i said yesterday, republicans are not going to be able to have it both ways, because donald trump is going to force them to make the choice between his authoritarian cult and american democracy. that is simple. yesterday, senate republican leader mitch mcconnell seemed to grasp thought making it clear that he is in fact anti-coup. >> let me give you my view of what happened january the 6th. we were all here. we saw what happened. it was a violent insurrection. with a purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful

transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next. that is when it was. >> that isn't arguably true. mcconnell said it without even bringing up donald trump's name, even though trump is of course responsible for what happened. mcconnell just laid out the basic facts of the matter. violent insurrection, full stop. mcconnell is demonstrating something approaching, well, common sense or outright courage, the sad senator from texas is going in the opposite direction as per usual. you remember when he thought it was politically safe, even advantageous to do so, ted cruz repeatedly called january 6th domestic terrorism before tucker carlson called him out, and he made an utterly humiliating appearance on fox to beg for forgiveness. >> you called this a terror attack, when by no definition was it a terror attack. that is a lie. you told that lie on purpose. i am wondering why you did?

>> tucker, thank you for having me on. when you aired your episode last night, i sent you a text shortly thereafter and said, listen i would like to go on because the way that i phrased things yesterday, it was sloppy, and it was frankly dumb. >> tucker, thank you. thank you for calling me out, and thank you for realizing how dumb i am. ted cruz learned his painful lesson there. of course, today he is attacking mitch mcconnell, which is a point of all of this conditioning that those folks are up to, hoping trump or tucker is watching, and will tell him that he is a good boy. >> the word insurrection is politically-charged propaganda. it is happily used by democrats, and the corporate media. i think that it is a mistake for republicans to repeat the political propaganda of democrats, and the corporate media.

>> doing great, ted! maybe we'll have you on tonight. donald trump of course cannot be left out, he released a statement slamming mcconnell saying that he quote, does not speak for the republican party, does not represent the views of the vast majority of his voters, he did nothing to fight for his constituents and stop the most fraudulent election in american history. what it really comes down to four republicans, again, trying to straddle this lie, this -- chasm is that donald trump right now controls the base of their party, the hard-core parts of that base our blindly loyal, they have sworn their fidelity to donald trump. and if a member of the republican party wants that base in trump support, trump will accept nothing less than an endorsement of the insurrection, that is the thing. that is why this is an straddle herbal. because trump's position, stated position, is that the insurrection was good, actually. that was his position on january 6th, when he sicked to the crowd on the capitol. it was his position when he's done this menacing tweet, while the

capital was still under siege, condemning his vice president for not having the courage to do what should have been done. that was his position when he watched the violence unfold, and his attention was so warped, that he hit rewind and watch certain moments again, and was confused why staffers were not as excited as he was. it was his position then, it is his position now. it will be his position forever. donald trump does not take the position, well that was unfortunate, let's move on. no. but in trump's position is, that was good, and right, and correct. i tried every avenue to overturn the election. again, that phrase used by him himself, i wished the insurrection had worked. and the real insurrection was election day, because any small democratic election that threw me out of office is illegitimate because i should be in power for life. that is the position. that is what you are called to accept. that is the position donald trump demands of anyone who wants to support, and the support of his base. it is a position that honestly almost

no one in republican politics, while, certainly not the majority of them, can actually say out loud. they cannot say it. it sounds nuts. and evil, when you say it. because it is. so a lot of people are frozen by it. just look at this, this is interesting, fox news part of the corporate media you might even call it, they're nonexistent coverage of those two huge stories over the past few days, the rnc condemning kinzinger and cheney, and mike pence saying he had no right to overturn the election. according to media matters, the network's most prominent figures have ignored those developments. and you can imagine them leaning into those stories focusing on the ex presidents pushback, saying here is trump sticking it to those rhinos. or you could imagine them bashing kinzinger or cheney themselves. they opted to do neither, and just not mention it at all. because again, every republican with any brain cells who is not an outright sociopath recognizes that it is an impossible choice between the trump cult and keeping american democracy

alive, and it is one that they would very much like to avoid, thank you very much. but i am telling you they cannot. and every day, we are learning more and more about how strenuously, and earnestly trump and his eyelids really did pursue firing a gun into the head of american democracy after 245 years. today the washington post reporting on new evidence showing how the trump team pushed their claims the election was illegitimate, a republican prosecutor in northern michigan told the post in the weeks after the 2020 election, rudy giuliani and other legal advisers, i asked him to get his counties voting machines, and passed them to team trump. the prosecutor refused to comply with that blatantly inappropriate, i would guess, unlawful request telling the post, quote, i never expected in my life i would get a call like this. john wayne's investigator for the post, -- one of the people

who broke that giuliani news today, whose latest piece on the -- mcconnell denounces rnc censure of january six panel members, and they both join me now. john let me start with you with a great reporting out of michigan, it is a wild story. who is this prosecutor, and who contacted him to try to acquire custody of the voting machines in his county? >> the prosecutor is a guy named james rush attorney. he is a marine veteran, a republican, he was called several times after the election by a lady named catherine freeze. she is not very well known, she is a former lobbyist who is working for rudy giuliani after the election. and what the call, she put him on speakerphone, and suddenly he said that he was talking to rudy giuliani, catherine, patrick, and bernie, the former new york police commissioner. they asked him, can you get the voting machines and passed it to us?

>> we have seen -- >> and -- >> we have seen a real get the machines theme emerge from a lot of the reporting out of this, the executive order that was drafted, sort of brainstorming on this. but, this is the first ever document, a direct ask that we have seen in the reporting of saying, can you actually give -- physically give them to us, right? >> i think that is right. this actually goes further than that. the prosecutor did declined to give them the machines. but they got them another way, behind the scenes, giuliani's team helped a local trump supporter follow -- while a lawsuit, didn't get much notice, no one knew what was happening, the judge who had donated to trump a couple weeks earlier, give them access to the machines. they could -- alleging fraud, and that report has become a keystone in the election fraud conspiracy.

>> in terms of the dynamic on capitol hill right now, and the aftermath of this, both of penn state and the rnc censure, how would you characterize the dynamic here? we are watching senators, members of the house, run away from microphones, or give statements saying it is novel, you have got to give them that. what are you seeing from your perch? >> i think that the statements that you are hearing all depend on how safe the lawmaker you are hearing from is from having -- to kowtow to donald trump. mitch mcconnell gave a very strong statement yesterday, but he is very safe. he is not going to be removed from minority leader, if he went back to some, that he is going to be the majority leader. his caucus likes him. don trump doesn't have a lot of power over him. kevin mccarthy's future depends a lot on donald trump. he is not assumed

control of his own future as mitch mcconnell is. we see the running away clip which is kind of funny, just for the fast pace that they were all walking at, but it is a much harder tightrope that he is walking. he is always walking. because, he can't risk alienating donald trump and having those statements being called whatever the old crow version would be for mccarthy. he cannot risk that. so, we are seeing people go out on the ledge as far as they are able to. given how safe they are with their position. i mean, the rnc has clearly put all of the lawmakers in a bad spot. even marjorie taylor greene said the way to remove liz cheney, and adam kinzinger, is to vote them out of office. this is, probably speaking, even the republicans that are doing some version of defense, like halle said, this is what our grassroots members believe, so it is an accurate

representation of what they believe. even the ones who are more on the defensive side, all of them i think would be preferred to talk about joe biden, about inflation, this has dragged them into a weeklong story about the fissures and the republican party when there are fissures in the democratic party, the much rather be focusing on that, it will be more politically helpful to them. >> right. although, i will note that fisher isn't noting whether the coup was good or bad. donald trump really does think it was good. i don't think that was in this characterization. i just don't think that he thinks it was a regrettable, sad day. he has been very clear about that. election day was a regrettable and sad day. the democratic, the people of america, chose joe biden. that is not a view that you can finesse or massage. >> the arts and see statement was written for the proverbial audience of one, who enjoyed it, who issued a statement

congratulating mcdaniel for the statement. they have since tried to thread the needle, saying that they were talking about non violent protesters. but, you know, it was written in a way that was designed for donald trump to hear the version he wanted to hear. he heard that version. >> if you had the scoop on this today, that they took out nonviolent, illegal, from the draft... i work with words for a living. you do, too. you do, too, john. you are careful about what you say. you are not just throwing in any old thing in the new york times or the washington post, or my program here. you choose words, advisedly. they made their choice. they're living with it. john, final question for you on this story. i mean, i guess the question is, is this the end of what we know, coming out of this particular hot spot of the six or seven states that they were active? >> this was something that they used to try to pressure

lawmakers in battleground states. evidence that they got access to were put into this report, put into the federal government [inaudible] officials were looking at it, as well. it really shows how close they got to going ahead with the plan to use the power of the federal government to seize these machines, to recount ballots, to somehow prove that there is fraud, to overturn the election. donald trump himself on the stage on january six, cited at the county michigan that we're talking about, as proof of the election being stolen. shortly after, supporters stormed the capitol. >> thank you both. that was great. coming up, he came on msnbc to describe what amounts to a coup. now, peter navarro has a date with the january six committee. plus, she is the founder of the anti vax group which just took a plea for january 6th. both the stories, next.

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trump white house just got a subpoena from the bipartisan committee investigating the january 6th insurrection. peter navarro was one of trump 's top trade advisers, he also took a direct role in plotting the attempted coup. he's a man of many talents. he's been pretty open about it. navarro called for the green bay sweep, not only did he write a book about it, in his book, he was literally just on msnbc boasting about the plot he cooked up with steve bannon.

>> we had over 100 congressman and senators on capitol hill ready to implement the sweep, the sweep was that. we were going to challenge the results of the election in the six battleground states. they were michigan, pennsylvania, georgia, wisconsin, nevada, and basically, these were the places that we believe that if votes were sent back to those battleground states and looked at again, that there would be enough concern amongst the legislators that most or all of those states would decertify the election. that would throw the election to the house of representatives. >> do you realize that you are describing a coup? >> no. >> going to side with ari on that one. that was just last month when navarro told another journalist that trump was on board with the strategy. and that representative paul gosar and senator

ted cruz were among the hundred lawmakers ready to implement the plan. neither cruz, nor gosar, nor navarro, nor trump have really faced any kind of legal repercussions for the plans on january six. of course, hundreds of people that stormed the capitol have. like this woman, dr. simone gould, seen here with a blow horn inside the capital january 6th. gold is the founder of a group called america's front line doctors. which sprung up last year decrying lockdowns, pushing debunked covid treatments like hydroxychloroquine and spewing anti-vax rhetoric. gold was already in d. c. for an anti vaccine rally on january 5th. and then joined the crowd at the capitol the next day. we know she was there because, well, she told the washington post all about it just days later confirmed quote, that she went inside the capitol, saying that she followed a crowed and assumed it was legal to do so. she also told the paper that she regretted being there. doctor simone gold was soon arrested after that interview and charged with five counts, including obstructing official proceeding.

she originally plead not guilty. yesterday, reached a plea deal with prosecutors. we still don't know the details of that deal. doctor gold is still out and about, peddling anti vax nonsense. zoey tillman is a senior legal reporter for buzzfeed news where she's been covering the prosecutions for the january 6th insurrection. she joins me now. zoey, what can you tell me about dr. gold's case? >> you know, her case, in one sense, is one of the more high-profile ones, just because she is a known entity. she was a speaker at the rally the health freedom rally, the day before january 6th. one of the more boldface names that we've seen prosecuted, in another sense, her case is one of the more garden-variety ones that we've seen in the context of the 730 plus cases. she is not charged with assaulting police. she's not charged with conspiracy. she was indicted along with an associate of obstructing

official proceeding, which is one of the more serious felonies that has been charged in these cases. it has been a way for prosecutors to differentiate between the rioters who, you know, the evidence is they walked in and walked out, versus defendants for the government believe there is more evidence of their intent. they went ten to obstruct what congress was doing that day. simone gould's case is one of those. you know, whether her plea deal takes her down to a misdemeanor count, just two common in some of the details that we've seen so far, where people were charged with felonies have taken a deal for one of the lesser charges. we still need to see with the terms of the deal are. but, you know, it is quite notable. in another sense, it is illustrative of what we've seen, so far. >> when striking to me is that they've joined at the hip nature, ideological factions, health freedom rally on the fifth and the people who stormed the capitol in the six

with dr. gold and the venn diagram. america's frontline doctors, which he fronted, is not a fringe group. it is been cited by republicans in many circumstances. they've appeared at congressional testimony. i think in ron johnson's committee, if i'm not mistaken. the current florida surgeon general has appeared on stage with doctor gold. so, this group is very much front and center in republican politics. >> it is. that is right. it is worth noting that dr. gould is a licensed doctor in california. her medical license's current. once she pleaded guilty and is convicted of a crime, that is something that will need to be reported to the medical board. it doesn't necessarily mean that she will lose her medical license. you know, january six was really a convergence of a lot of grievances, separate but intertwined with the election. so, there are other defendants that had gone to the rally,

were carrying signs about their opposition to vaccines and mass, lock downs. they joined together with the idea that their anger at the handling of the pandemic was related to what they saw as a stolen election. it was this really broad area of grievances at the capitol. i think doctor gold is the center of that confluence. >> the timeline here... it's interesting to me. something we've returned to time in again with reporting on this, largely from you and ryan reilly. it is the kind of logistical processing that this is taken, particularly for that d. c. attorney's office. she was arrested a year ago and was hanging out there, entering a plea. is that timeline typical? >> it is fort defendants who weren't kept in jail after their arrest, they aren't considered threats going forward the community. allowed to go home. they are considered less of a

priority in terms of moving things along with production of evidence, setting schedules. we know back in december, i believe, a plea offer had been extended. it is typical for cases that are just misdemeanor cases. misdemeanor cases being the first wave of plea deals, now moving into a felony, cases getting extended and deciding whether to take those or go to trial. so, it does. it does fit the timeline. it is a long, long timeline. we have a ways to go. >> all right. thank you. >> chris. >> in terms of congress can get through the house with strong bipartisan support? they just won't do it when anyone is watching. crossing party lines to help get the post office, when we come back. me back.

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>> another great mission the republican party in the conservative movement since at least the days of reagan has been privatized part of the government sector, public workforce, and to make money on things that people depend on

their day-to-day lives. in the 2006 midterms, democrats could control the congress, they wanted both the house and the senate. but the republican majority passed one more bill called the postal accountability enhancement act, which provided neither accountability, nor enhancement to postal service. the bill passed without a recorded vote in either house, signed by george w. bush, required the usps to prepay the next 50 years worth of health and retirement benefits for all of its employees, a rule that no other federal agency must follow. the provision acted like a kind of poison pill for the usps, and by 2020, the postal service had racked up 100 and 60. 9 billion dollars in debt from wet is owed pre-paying retirement benefits. the problem is, the post office is not really a public business, it is a public service, like a fire department, but postal service is actually in the constitution. article one, section eight, it should not have to turn a profit to survive, it just needs to

deliver the mail. some of us have been shouting this from the roof tops for more than a decade. >> the post office is running between the weight of a 2006 law, which -- for the next 75 years, which amounts to another 5. 5 billion dollar annual obligation. i think there is a sense in which at a time in which the nation is extremely polarized, in which are sort of social fabric is extremely stretched. the post office stands out as a kind of lone, civic institution, that is shared. that is a shared space. we all participate in. and there is something really upsetting about the notion of that going away. >> look at bat. all of 15 years old, talking with my hands. this postal service has been a slow death spiral for more than 15 years, essentially completely created by that one piece of legislation. people have been debating about, it fighting about, it and yesterday, democrats and republicans in the house just together voted overwhelmingly to pass legislation to rescue the usps from its financial

loads. the senate sponsored by -- has more than a dozen republican cosponsors, and senator gary peters joins me now. senator, just to reset here, the pension provisions in about 2006 bill, what was the point of it? no other private business has to fund it -- nobody has to do that kind of penchant pre-funding in america. i never even understood, was it just literally to put the thing out of business? >> to be honest with you, i have not been able to get a good answer to why it was in there. clearly, it is ridiculous. as you mentioned in your segments, no government agency does this brief and health care, in the retirement for all of those years or even new employees coming in now who may not be retiring for decades. certainly no private business in america does it as well, it makes no sense. and

here to put this incredible financial burden on the post service, it needed to be fixed. but over years, folks were not able to do it. we have been focused on it for the last year, intensely, and i have been working very closely with my house colleagues, and we have been working in a bipartisan way trying to work through some of the difficulties with this. and trying to keep people away from adding a whole bunch of other stuff that would just block it down, we are literally on the verge of fixing this problem, which is actress absolutely huge. >> i wanna talk about the politics, because i think covering this for a decade now, it is, weird everyone was -- it isn't the constitution, everyone uses, it it should not really be a polarizing thing. it is not some culture war, it -- people are going to use the mail. it got turned into one, which is why you had this fight for ten years. and then somehow, in the last few months, you guys people arrested and got

341 votes in the house. how did that happen? >> with a lot of work, and also i think a greater appreciation by folks, what you said, everybody relies on the postal service. it is actually the most trusted government entity if you ask the american public. people rely on the postal service for delivery of critical materials. you think of drugs, prescription drugs that come through the postal service, people rely on that. particularly in a rural areas, it is rural areas that require a healthy and vibrant postal service, certainly many of my republican parties represent very rural states, it is critically important to them. we just have to keep stressing how important it is. to come together and fix something that simply should never have been put in place beforehand, and it makes eminent, common sense. i would like to say that this is a triumph of common sense in washington, which we all like to have those stories from time to time. >> i was blown away when i saw the roll call vote, because i expected it to be one of these, party line votes, and the house was team this up for the senate,

who knows if it goes anywhere, and there is 441 votes, you have 100 republican votes, you have got enough cosponsors in the senate, what does this do? does it just take away this onerous pension pre funding requirement? >> that is one of the major aspects. it takes away the pre-funding requirement, which takes close to 30 billion dollars of liability which is on the books right now for the postal service, which makes no sense for the reasons that we talked about. it also allows the employees as they retired to go into medicare, and integrate with medicare, which every company in america does with their employees as they retire, they go into medicare, and it is something that postal employees have actually been paying into medicare throughout their career, now they will be a part of that like other companies. but we also put in some service standards to make sure that we have six-day delivery, so people can count on that mail coming, particularly if they are delivering critical drugs to folks who want to know that that delivery will come. we are

also went out a lot more transparency, where you can actually look at performance standards for the postal service weekly, it is even going to be by zip code, so you can actually see how mail is being delivered in your area. when you put those kinds of performance standards, and transparency, we will have greater accountability, which is going to be a great benefit, and certainly something that is very customer friendly. >> final question, it's louis dejoy going to stick around? where do we end up on that? >> he is still there. he is working. he has been helpful on this bill, to get this past, we have the board of governors. the board of governors makes the determination as to who is the postmaster general, and we are in the process now of appointing new members to the board of governors. they will be making those kinds of decisions in the future. >> all right, senator gary peters, thank you for your time. >> good to be with you. >> don't go anywhere, after months of resistance, the push to ban members of congress from creating their own stocks gets the greenlight from the house speaker. congresswoman katie porter has been championing

that effort, and she joins me ahead. she joins m ahead.

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plus, 0% interest for 24 months on all smart beds. only for a limited time >> the senate judiciary committee held a long overdue hearing on the untold number of civilians killed by the u. s. military's drone program in the last 20 years, on the war on terror. the only reason that this hearing actually finally happened has to do with one of the last known drone strikes launched by the u. s. in afghanistan. the end of august of last year during those frenzied final days of american occupation, an isis member detonated a bomb at the airport outside the airport in the capital city of kabul, killing at least 170 afghans and 13 u. s. service members. a few days later, american officials announced that they had thwarted another potential attack, having successfully launched a drone strike on a car that they had been tracking which they believed contain another bomb, and another member of isis. even days later, when questions arose, that strikes killed civilians, the

chairman of the joint chiefs general mark milley called it a righteous strike, but then an incredible investigation by the new york times found that no, not only did the car not have explosive, the man driving was actually an aid worker. the civilians killed were nine members of his family. today, a lawyer for the family has testified about the horrors of the strike. >> i have listened to fathers describe the horror of having to pick up the body parts of their children. i have a listen to one of my clients struggle to breathe through her despair after the killing of her husband, and -- an aid worker for an american ngo, and three of her sons, and one of her grandchildren. my clients grief is compounded by the fact that for 19 days, our government kept up false allegations about their loved ones, wrongly asserting the strike was righteous, and successful against isis operatives. the pentagon later admitted its mistake, but the damage is

done. >> a horrible bombing of the kabul airport by an isis bomber, followed by a drone strike that killed an aid worker and his family, those are the last brutal moments of that war, the biden administration to its credit brought to a close. but as war reported told me -- told me this week, afghanistan is now, right now, in the midst of a humanitarian crisis. >> i mean, it has happened, it is in the freefall right now. the stories that i am hearing, i spoke to a colleague of mine in the south today, and we are seeing severe malnutrition among children, we are seeing people on the streets, to a degree we had never seen before, there are images coming out of the country which are horrific. stories of ethiopia in the 19 80s. this is a famine, like most famines, this is a human made disaster. >> a human made disaster that we in the u. s. can help stop. to get a full understanding of the situation, on the ground in afghanistan right now and what can be done, i really encourage

you to listen to the rest of that insightful interview with journalist some global, -- that whole conversation is our no available on my podcast. available on my podcast.

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being in government and playing the stock market that was noticed by an economist a few years ago, specifically that members of congress earned higher than average returns on their investments. while it is possible that some members, stockbrokers, could have particularly had instincts in this regard, there are clearly some problematic patterns. back in 2017, for example, republican congressman, tom price of georgia, was being vetted to become donald trump's secretary of health and human services, when it emerged that he purchased $15,000 worth of stock in a health care company, then turned around and introduced legislation that would benefit that company. it was also many times that he

traded health related stocks while serving on a subcommittee. price denied any wrongdoing, and was eventually confirmed of his position, though he resigned seven months later due to unrelated ethical scandals. this is not however just a republican issue, it is bipartisan, last year for instance, democratic congressman john yarmouth who is chair of the budget committee bought several thousand dollars worth of cannabis stocks. a month later, he was touting a bill he cosponsored that would decriminalize marijuana. like price, yarmouth denies any wrongdoing. this kind of thing happens all the time in congress. if you are wondering why this type of trading by members has not been addressed before, here is the thing, it kind of has. back in 2012, congress passed the stock act, meant to prohibit members of congress from using non public information for personal benefit. but with fines of just a few hundred dollars, legislators continue to buy and sell hundreds of millions of stocks each year, raising some very clear ethical, if not legal questions. back in december, there was a push to ban this trading, speaker of the house, nancy pelosi, opposed it saying, quote, we

are a free market economy. it appears that she has since changed her mind saying today that she is open to a ban on owning and trading individual stocks from members of congress and also, those in the judicial branch. congresswoman, katie porter, a democrat of california, member of the oversight and reform committee, she is reintroducing the bicameral stock act 2.0, along with senator kyrsten gillibrand of new york, and congresswoman porter joins me now. let me give the devil's advocate case here. which is just that, hey, members of congress are just people, they have investments, and it is just going to coincidentally intersect. you are doing stuff in the public interest, you are taking investrment advice, it does not mean that it is corrupt. >> the problem here is not just one of actual corruption, it is also one of perception. the american people simply do not trust our federal government in many cases. this is an example. only about one in four americans trust leaders in washington to do what is right.

so we need to be earning back their trust, and the way to do that is to hold ourselves to a higher standard. so, we need to simply ban trading stocks by members of congress. >> how would it work? >> well there are a couple of different approaches. i think that the easiest one to implement is to simply say, if you own stocks coming in, fine. you can keep them. but you cannot sell them, you cannot buy them, you cannot make any changes. you cannot take any action, while you are in congress, to serve yourself. because you are supposed to be serving the american people. there are a couple of their approaches, one would require people to sell all stocks that they own upon being elected. for people who are in office for maybe two years, they get elected and unelected, that could require some expenses, but there are work-arounds to do that. the third way is to require people who are elected to put any stocks they own into a qualified blind trust. this is an approach that we have seen used in other contexts as well, the problem is the trust

is only as blind as a trustee. and there is no guarantee that somebody won't be telling their trustee what they want done, or how to act. there is also cost of administrative expenses to setting up that qualified blind trust. there are different approaches, here but they all really share the same thing, which is members of congress should not be wheeling and dealing to benefit themselves. they should be working and doing for the american people. >> on the wheeling and dealing, i think that the stock act was part of what's disclosed what's happened, because the former disclosure provisions were looser, right? it is striking to me how much stock trading members of congress are doing. which is not a thing that normal folks do a ton of. people might have investments, they might have, you know, i. r. a. s, or they might have exchange traded funds, index funds, but saying well, there is this form of company, let's buy $10,000 worth of that, there is a lot of that going on in congress. more than i maybe would have guessed.

>> there is a lot of it going on, and it is going on by both democrats and republicans. i think that we have to be honest about that. this is not a partisan problem, we have people on both sides who have violated the stock act this year, so you know i think some of this reflects that people in congress tend to be older, they tend to have accumulated more wealth, some of them come from business backgrounds, but the reality is the solution here is so simple. simply ban trading stocks while in congress. >> there is a lot of bipartisan support for this. it has become a kind of populist issue even with folks like matt gates for instance, folks on the right who really love it, the speaker was resistant. there is some reporting today that alexandria cortez, and others might have been organizing a discharge position, which is a way of going around house leadership to get something to the floor. how do you understand what appears to be a change of heart from democratic house leader, speaker of the house, nancy pelosi. >> democratic leader nancy

pelosi was wrong. i am glad that she has changed her mind. i think that that is a marker of leadership. but the reality is, i am always willing to stand up to leaders of both parties including my own party, and i am really gratified here that she is changing her mind. she said when she initially was asked about this that we have a free market economy. well, she would also be the first thing to say that we have a free democracy. and that means, what the american people want, when they feel strongly about, what they need to trust their leaders, we should be delivering. and that is what i think are changing positions have signaled. >> she also talked about including members of the judiciary. i wonder what you think of that idea, i couldn't tell if that is an attempt to maybe kill this, because people will not go for it, or just to actually be ethically inclusive? >> well the judiciary should be held to the same kind of high standard and earning the public's trust that members of congress are. there are very similar kinds of problems. we have seen statistics showing that there were hundreds, and hundreds of cases in which federal judges did not recuse themselves from the case, even though they own stocks that

would be affected by the ruling. so i think the problem is there with both members of congress, and with judges, and we ought to deal with both of them at one time. >> i want to ask the broader question, because we just got this post office bill that we saw, the past 341 votes. i know you are a big post office advocate, i think that you and i have spoken about it before, what is the grand unified theory for when bipartisanship works, or does not work in the house? because, it is interesting to me, there are certain things where you just know you are not going to get a single republican vote, and there are other places where that is not the case, and sometimes i am a little surprised by what it does and doesn't fall into which category. >> well i think that the reality is, when the vast majority of american people regardless of whether they are registered or vote as republicans or democrats, really care about it. congress gets it done. that is what we

see with the post office. that is what we see with this ban on stock trading. that is what we see with supporting veterans, and making sure that our members of our military have what they need. i think the problem sometimes is that what leadership in both parties cares about diverges from where the american people are. i think that that is why sometimes people think, i have this really great idea, and i was elected to congress, but is it a great idea, do you think it is a great idea, or do the american people think it is a great idea? i think that that is why we see things like the postal service banning on congress members trading stocks, support for our veterans, some of those issues having really widespread bipartisan support. >> we should note that the polling on this is pretty, you know, you are getting 80% of republicans and democrats on congressional stock banning. >> i find that reassuring, chris, that the american people across the board understand that we need to be able to trust our elected leaders. we have a lot of bad news about democracy, a lot of views about polarization right now, but the fact that we see that kind of widespread polling, that 80% of americans understand that elected leaders should be putting the peoples interest before their own interest

reassures me a lot. >> i agree. anytime matt gates is on a bill, i am always, like am i missing something? congresswoman katie porter, thank you very much. all right, that is all in for this evening, the rachel maddow show is "all evening. the rachel maddow show starting right now. ali is in for rachele. >> thanks for joining us at this hour. we have a lot of show to get to tonight. today, the january 6th investigation issued subpoenas for another senior trump white house official. trump trade adviser peter navarro. he has not been shy about his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. he has actually written an entire book about it and given numerous interviews including more than one with my colleague ari melber right on this network. his face says it